Miss You Nights
(David Townsend)
Originally recorded by: Cliff Richard
I've had many times I can tell you
Times when innocence I'd trade for company
And children saw me crying
I thought I'd had my share of that
But these miss you nights are the longest

Midnight diamonds stud my heaven
Southward burning like the jewels that eye your place
And warm winds that embrace me
Just as surely kissed your face
Yeah those miss you nights they're the longest

(Lay down) Lay down all thoughts of your surrender
It's only me who's killing time
(play down) play down all dreams once remembered
It's just the same this miss you game

Thinking of my going
How to cut the thread and leave it all behind
Looking windward for my compass
I take each day as it arrives
But these miss you nights are the longest

Yeah these miss you nights are the longest
Leave it all behind...

Documentation

26 year old Dave Townsend wrote Miss You Nights in 1974 while his girlfriend was away on holiday. He recorded it on an album for Island records which was then shelved by the company. Island decided to recoup the £20,000 costs through cover deals. A year later the head of Music at Island records in LA, Lionel Conway, handed a bunch of
demo tapes to Bruce Welch, one of the Shadows and now also a producer. Welch was looking for songs to
revitalize Cliff Richard’s flagging career. Back home he flicked over one of the cassette tapes and played a song he hadn’t heard in the Island office. He instantly
recognized it as a hit. The song’s haunting ethereal quality owed a lot to Andrew Powell’s string arrangements. The uncomplicated, original imagery and potent feelings of longing and loneliness marked it as a great love song. Welch played it to Cliff and they recorded it in September 1975. It gave Cliff his first top ten hit in 2 years and along with “Devil Woman” from the same album relaunched his career. Of the song and its writer Cliff said: I think it’s one of the nicest songs I’ve ever made…when I heard his version it was terrific, so we just stole the whole thing. He was pleased to have that happen. I mean it could have been anybody. It would have been a hit."